Strawberry

Is water overrated? Yes and no. Yes for raw fooders who eat a whole, natural, biologically appropriate diet, because there is plenty of water in our food. I've heard some hygienists propose that since humans have no natural faculty for drinking water, we don't need to drink at all. But this doesn't seem like a valid idea to me because when I put my fingers together and dip my hands in water, it makes a pretty good drinking vessel. :)
    The answer to the question for people who eat cooked, processed, water-depleted food, however, is that water is NOT overrated. Their foods come out of their bodies with more water than when they go in (think potato chips, bread, candy, etc.), so the water has to come from somewhere. The body needs extra water to process these foods, and this is where the 8-glass recommendation comes from. I like to think that even cooked people can trust that their sense of thirst will properly signal their needs, but perhaps not. It's hard to say because the 'experts' who dispense this recommendation generally don't believe that our senses can be relied upon, so it may or not be an established fact that thirst can't keep up with need in a person who eats cooked foods. On the other hand it IS pretty common for people to feel thirsty all the time eating these kinds of foods. That's where the tradition of always offering people something to drink comes from, and many other similar cultural practices like when people gather for any reason there are always beverages being served, like we're going to die if we don't drink for a couple hours. Everybody's thirsty all the time because of what they eat. Drinking water to aid in the digestion of wrong foods is like all the other band-aid approaches to problems in our culture. The raw food 'community', unfortunately, generally takes these ideas on face value without considering their origins and whether or not they are valid, and if they are, whether they apply to people who are eating correctly, and that's why we hear people parroting them even on raw discussion boards.
    In addition, the water drinking thing is popular in the cooked food world because it's another one of those low-cost (sacrifice-wise) practices that people can do that makes them think they're living healthfully. It's like parking farther away in the parking lot, 'dealing' with your stress, eating organic food or free range meats, etc., -- all those ideas we hear in the mainstream or even alternative health media. It's not that some of these practices aren't healthful, it's that they won't solve the big problems that eating cooked foods cause. Really getting to the root of those problems requires major sacrifices and a radical shift in the way we think and eat, of course, and people don't want to do that so instead they meditate, go to the gym, drink lots of water, get regular mammograms, buy organic potato chips, etc.
    Having said all that, new raw fooders shouldn't try to NOT drink water because raw fooders aren't supposed to need much. People should drink in response to thirst. If you seem thirsty all the time, it may be the case that you're overeating. I know that sometimes when I overeat certain fruits, I get a thirst that no amount of water seems to quench. And, sometimes when we get a signal that we think is hunger, it will go away if we take a sip of water. Of course when we all get to the point where we're eating only in response to true hunger (which takes many years), we'll know with certainty the difference between hunger and thirst. In the meantime, while we're learning, if taking a sip of water can keep us from eating when we're truly not hungry, that's what we should do.

(from Raw School forum)

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